A blog on strategies, and applying strategic perspectives on business related issues, and on miscellaneous discussions about China

2007-09-30

A lousy reporting from IHT -- about the case of Jin Lei and Gensci

This is not to defend Dr. Jin Lei. I am just shocked at the lousiness of the NYT reporting.

IHT and NYT today carried one of the most ignorant and biased articles for such a renowned paper.

Two reporters, David Barboza and Duff Wilson, reported a case against dr. Jin Lei, founder and Chief Executive of Genesci, the market leader of Human Growth Hormone (HGH) and also one of the most successfully biotech companies in China.

A few very important facts seem to have been deliberately missed or mis-directed, which made this reporting look like total trash.

Jintropin is no different from any other Human Growth Hormone that is marketed by US companies such as Genetech, Eli Lilly or Swiss biotech company Sereno. However, the articles made it sound like Genesci was the only company in the world that produced such drug, and hence Gensci committed an unforgivable crime by selling this to rouge distributors in USA. The fact is, HGH is an FDA approved drug, its main function is to treat dwarfness and other growth retarded diseases. No quality related complaint about Jintropin was reported, the only difference seems to be the process of physician prescription

The reality is that Jintropin does not have FDA approval, just like any of the other Chinese drugs, such as another biotech blockbuster, recombinant insulin. When it was produced by a Chinese company, it was not allowed to be imported to USA. It is extremely costly to apply for FDA approval (US$10-100M)

This is simply a case of selling a China SFDA approved drug into US where it was not approved by US FDA. Yet the two reporter, whether being ignorant or lazy, or for other reasons, reported it as if it were some novel dopes Jin patented for himself. Jintropin is just a brand for a generic drug that is also sold by US companies.

In fact, it is unforgivable that these reporters missed a rumour in the past that Genentech had allegedly accused Jin of stealing its technology for manufacturing Jintropin (HGH). Perhaps this will weaken their story of misleading the reader through demonizing HGH

Finally, in the last paragraph of the report our 'respectable' reporters inserted an innuendo linking Jin to the executed corruptor Zheng Xiaoyu. Zheng has been the head of SFDA since its foundation. Almost all drug companies in China have photo of his visit. It is commonplace that Chinese companies (this is not unique for China) showing photograph of their bosses with Clinton and Bush, or Zheng Xiaoyu, which often has no correlation to their actual relationship. In reality, this is at best an oversight from Gensci’s web manager, who forgot to distant themselves from a corruptor. Yet the two IHT idiots tried to hint that Jin was linked to the corruptor.

I do not want to defend Dr. Jin and I do not have any knowledge about the case. All I know is that if I were Dr. Jin, the report would suffice a libel suit against IHT and the two reporters. I also believe that sloppy reporting like this will be viewed as part of the coordinated efforts in a malicious attack on anything China, the Mattel-toy mess being the other.

The disinformation campaign in foreign media confirms one thing: China must be doing something right.Despite the so-called lack of the things that make for ``good governance'' - transparency, democracy, human rights - China is able to prosper its people, even though many things need to be fixed.The only strategy (if it's one at all) for western governments is to discredit, where it thinks can be done.Otherwise, how can they answer to their own people. But as they say, you can fool some of the people some of the thing, but not all of the time.Perhaps, just perhaps, eventually, they will learn that the fault lies not with China, but their own politicians.